CHAPTER 13THE TRUE ORTHODOXA large proportion of the prisoners, all Russians, were of the sect known as the True
Orthodox. Because they wore the traditional garb of nuns, the whole zone called them
"the nuns." The rules stated that prison apparel must be black. Theirs
was, and
anyone who tried to make them change into prison uniforms gave up because the nuns
refused. For several months after their Imprisonment, the nuns steadfastly refused to
wash. Other prisoners were ordered to wrap them in blankets and bring them to the bath
house. Once there, the nuns refused to undress. After being forcibly undressed and
splashed with water, they quickly dressed and fled to their beds, a sort of refuge or
asylum. Eventually the nuns were persuaded that it would not be a sin to go to the bath
once every ten days.

The nuns differed from the other prisoners in refusing to
work. For their refusal, they
were confined innumerable times to the hard punishment cells. According to the
law, they
could be kept in those cells for three months. Thereafter the local court would
arrive,
hold a session, and sentence all those whom doctors considered healthy and capable to
work.

There is only one place in the Soviet Union for especially dangerous criminals against
the state, the Vladimir prison. No matter where the criminal was born or raised, if he or
she has been tried for especially dangerous crimes against the state and if the sentence
is to be served in prison rather than in a labor camp, the prisoner is sent to Vladimir
prison." Corrective labor camp" means that one must work rather than idly serve
one's sentence. Vladimir prison is the only place where one can serve one's time without
working in a locked cell, with the right to a thirty-minute walk once every twenty-four
hours. Other strictures include the limit of one letter per month to relatives and a
minimum ration of food.

When prisoners were brought from the Vladimir
prison, they looked as though they had
been dug from a grave. Their faces were emaciated, unnaturally grayish and pale with
sunken eyes. A group of nuns arriving from Vladimir was a terrible sight. Zenta explained
that they were from our camp originally.

"There is always someone from our camp in Vladimir
prison," she told me.

"For a long time?"

"Usually fur three years. At the end of that
time, they are returned, and another
group is taken there."

"But that is dreadful. Look at them, they look
dead!"

"What can you do if their God doesn't allow them to
work? We all work, even though
it is hard. Sometimes I think I will rebel and refuse to work too. But I can never muster
up the courage."

"But on the outside they must have worked."

"They never worked officially," Zenta
explained. "None of them ever
carried a Soviet passport. They don't touch money, and they don't go to work."

"How can they gel by without passports?"

"They never let themselves be photographed, so that's why they don't have
passports. The other reason they would never even hold a passport in their hands is
because it carries the sign of satan: the five pointed star and the hammer and
sickle. The
sign of satan is also the reason they do not touch money. And they never go to the
doctor;
they treat themselves."

"But what if it's serious?"

"Doesn't make any difference. They pick some herbs in the
zone. They absolutely
refuse to go to the doctor or touch medicine from the dispensary. In Siberia we had
several cases where we had to try to save a life. We held their arms and legs down while
the nurse gave injections. And what do you think we got for it? The other nuns heaped the
world's worst curses upon us. Then they tried to hide their illnesses until several
died.
To this day they believe that doctors and medicine come from satan, only they themselves
are good. I can tell you, they come from satan too," Zenta concluded
angrily.

"I'd like to know how the court can sentence these women to three years in
Vladimir prison when they don't know the state of their health."

"This idiocy of theirs is to blame. If they went to the
doctor, only a few would
be declared capable of labor. The rest would officially be declared invalids."

"You know, they don't seem too bright. Even without a doctor or any medical tests,
it's clear that some of them are quite ill."

"Sure they're ill, everybody knows that. But a doctor's certificate is
essential.
He's the only one who can release anybody from work."

"This thing about not touching money. Here in prison no one has
any, but how do
they survive outside, pay for rent, transportation, food?"

"They don't live in rented apartments but spend the night wherever they happen to
be, usually with the people they do house work for in exchange for food. And if someone
gives them an old piece of black clothing they alter it. They don't need transportation
because they walk everywhere."

"I still don't understand. How can anyone walk such long distances, say several
thousand kilometers?"

"They don't need to go that far."

"What do you mean they don't? Say if one of them has finished serving her sentence
and wants to return to her relatives to live where she was living before, will she
walk?"

"No. The camp administration will send someone with her to the railroad station to
buy her ticket. Then he will give the ticket to the supervisor of the train and put the
nun herself into her carriage."

"All right, I understand it so far. She may be on the train several
days. How will
she cat without money?"

"She will beg her bread from the other
travelers. They have no demands beyond
bread because they know nothing of secular life. Their shirts are made from rough
canvas.
I saw one of them completely baffled by brassieres drying on a line. She pointed with her
finger and asked: "What's that thing and what do you do with it?" And another
middle-aged nun didn't even know that you can bring berries home from the woods, add sugar
and make jam for the winter. When she was told about it she shook her head in wonder
because all her life she went to the woods to eat berries. They think about nothing except
God."

I made friends with the nuns from the Tashkent
convent. All the nuns, including their
"matushka" (abbess), were arrested. Matushka Gorbashova was well along in
years.
The rest of the nuns respected her and brought her everything she needed. They made her
bed, did her laundry, took care of her as well as possible in the camp.

Closest to the matushka were her two assistants, her main
counselors. -The first one,
who appeared to be her closest counselor, had an advanced medical education. Those who
knew she graduated from a medical Faculty in Soviet Russia but refused all medicine were
astounded. The other studied history and was generally intelligent and an interesting
conversationalist. All the other nuns were literally servants of God and of this
trinity,
centered on matushka. -The faith of these nuns without education, and from peasant
backgrounds, bordered on fanaticism.

Matushka Gorbashova was the oldest, the two educated advisers
next, and the rest of
varying ages. It was difficult to determine their ages, for their faces were almost
invisible, hidden by a head covering different from that worn by ordinary nuns. These
headdresses, specially sewn of black cotton, fit the head as closely as a diver's helmet.
Only the eyes, nose, and mouth were visible; the rest of the face, eyebrows and half of
the cheeks were covered with blank fabric. It tied around the neck, and widened around the
shoulders to form a capelet ending at the shoulders. The dress was long, down to the
ground, and voluminous. Though they all looked alike, one recognized the youngest by her
gait. When she thought no one was watching this young nun sometimes pranced like a young
doe, her skirt aflutter. Her name was Nadje. Because of her slight build she looked like a
high school girl, and I thought her to be eighteen at the most, hut she was twenty-one.

Camp life was especially difficult for Nadja who was brought up in a religious family.
Her father was a Bulgarian, her mother a Russian, and the family lived in Tashkent. Along
with the other school children, Nadja joined the Pioneers, from which one is automatically
promoted to Comsomol. When her parents and their friends found out, they criticized her
for succumbing to peer pressure. They suggested that Nadja turn to the convent for advice.
Returning from the convent, Nadja promptly went to school and returned her Comsomol card,
saying that she did not need it anymore because she was leaving both that organization and
the school. Neither persuasion nor threats by teachers helped. Nadja went to the police,
returned her passport, and refused to take it back when they tried to force it on her.
Still, they pushed the passport into her hands. Nadja tore it into pieces which she threw
down on the table in front of the flabbergasted officials. Then Nadja went straight to the
Tashkent convent. Her behavior was unheard of, and as a result, the police, collaborating
with the Cheka, arrested the entire convent. The whole event was classified as a
particularly serious crime against the state. Each nun received ten years.

In the Soviet Union, convent life differs little from life in camps, at least in terms
of food, since the convents are so poor that the nuns must eat bread and
"kasha," barley stew. The state does not support the convents. Their only
subsidy is from the church to which the convent is attached however the church, without a
congregation, usually lacks funds. The income of many churches does not cover their
expenses, let alone necessary repairs like fixing the roof or walls or replacing glass in
the windows which are frequently broken by the local Comsomols.

The Tashkent convent was in a particularly bad situation because it did not belong to
the official church and was considered illegal. The Orthodox church and its ministers are
recognized by the state whereas the True Orthodox believers are considered a sect to be
persecuted. The True Orthodox believers, on the other hand, believe that they alone
possess the true faith. They sever themselves from the official leadership of the Orthodox
churches which have, along with the priests, sold out to the Communist party, the Cheka,
and the state censorship. The True Orthodox believers do not recognize these Orthodox
ministers.

Prayer, the main occupation of the nuns, frequently lasted several hours. They kneeled
for hours, reciting prayers and making signs of the cross. While dressing in the morning,
they made the sign of the cross over each piece of clothing. Each piece of bread and each
cup of water received its cross, as did the bed, in the evening before going to sleep. The
nuns usually did not reveal their family names. If asked, they answered: "God's
servant Barbara" or "God's servant Maria."

At the approach of Easter the nuns started their great fast, living on bread, water and
prayer for weeks on end. Their toughness was admirable. No inmates of the women's camps
were more persecuted than the nuns. One would think the administration was trying to
destroy the nuns. The hard punishment cells were probably not lifethreatening in summer,
but we could not understand how the nuns endured these cement cubicles for weeks on end
during the winter months, without heat or bedcovers. Warm food was issued once every two
days, and the soup could be better described as dishwater. The other days they received
only bread and water. It was bitter, bitter cold in the cubicles, and water froze.

When the thirty days of punishment passed, and the nuns came out of incarceration, all
the women not stuck at their sewing machines ran up breathlessly to see how the nuns
looked when they were carried out. Incredibly, the nuns walked out under their own power
supporting each other. And yet it was a gloomy sight. Two of the younger nuns who could
barely stand were propping up two elderly nuns, one of whom appeared ready to collapse.
Not a drop of blood in her face she looked like a wooden statue. The others did not look
much better, except that they appeared to have a small residue of strength. The nuns took
a long time to cross the small stretch between the punishment cells and the gate where the
other nuns waited to take the emaciated old women in their arms. Then two of them flanked
each of the others. The nuns walked to the barracks in a more sprightly step. Watching
this sight and knowing of their stay on the frosty cement for thirty days. I could only
believe God gave them the spiritual and physical strength to keep from perishing.